WE CANNOT FIGHT AGAINST INSTINCT.

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As a basis of comparison, I have taken the highest standard. New England is my mother, and my model of all that is good. I am proud not only of the freedom, but of the equality, that exists among these hills, where it matters not if a man be rich or poor, white or black. I am willing to give to the black man every right which I ask for myself; but I cannot compel my neighbor to invite him to his house; nor indeed do I feel at liberty myself to invite him to a company, in which there are those who would be offended by his presence. This would be rude to them, and would make all uncomfortable. A gentleman must be governed by a scrupulous delicacy, and that would dictate that he should not give pain on one side or on the other. Social intercourse cannot be regulated by law; it must be left to those natural attractions and affinities which the Almighty has planted in our breasts. That the whites should desire to keep to themselves, is not to be ascribed to arrogance; it does not even imply an assumption of superiority. It is not that one race is above the other, but that the two races are different, and that, while they may live together in the most friendly relations, each will consult its own happiness best by working along its own lines. This is a matter of instinct, which is often wiser than reason. We cannot fight against instinct, nor legislate against it; if we do, we shall find it stronger than our resolutions and our laws.

CHAPTER XII.

THE EXPATRIATION OF A WHOLE RACE.

The shadow of the African still darkens the South, casting over it a gloom, by which some are so burdened and oppressed with the foreboding of what may come hereafter, that they mildly propose, as the only remedy for the danger, to remove the race altogether. If the negro is left to multiply in the land, he may become too powerful, and so let us get rid of him while we may by his wholesale expatriation. Thus Senator Hampton of South Carolina, speaking of a movement of the negroes from some of the cotton States, says: "An extensive exodus would be an inconvenience to the South, but not an injury. We would gladly see the colored people move elsewhere, and we should be willing to suffer any reduction of representation that might result from their departure. It would deprive us of much of our labor, and make it a little harder for the present generation; but it would be the salvation of the future. I do not wish any harm to the negroes, but I would sacrifice whatever votes we get in the Electoral College or in Congress by reason of them, if they would go off by themselves. I would gladly vote to appropriate $50,000,000 for the purchase of Cuba, or some other place for them to settle in."

WHERE SHALL THE NEGRO GO?

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This is certainly very generous-to offer a whole race, which it is proposed to exile, all the world in which to choose a home, except the country in which they were born, and the only country that they know under the sun! But by what right do we make this startling proposal? Has the Creator given it to us thus to dispose of different portions of the earth? God has formed the world for the habitation of men-not of one race only, but of all the tribes and kindreds of mankind. Has He given to the Anglo-Saxon an exclusive right to lord it over this continent, and to expel all races but his own? First, to drive out the Indian from his forests and his hunting-grounds; and then, after having imported the African to be a slave, and kept him in bondage for eight generations, to turn him adrift, to seek a home in the West Indies, or in the pestilential swamps of South America? The descendants. of the Africans who were landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, are as pure "native Americans as the proud descendants of the Huguenots, who settled in South Carolina. On what ground can the latter invite the former to depart, and leave the continent to them alone?

But as this suggestion of "getting rid" of the black race is made in other quarters, and in all seriousness, it is worth considering what it implies.

You who would expatriate the negro, tell us, Where shall he go? Two generations since, it was the belief of many good people that the Africans had been brought to America to be Christianized, and were now to be returned to their native land, to be the heralds of the Gospel over the Dark Continent. The idea had been conceived in the last century by Dr. Samuel Hopkins, that brave old champion of the faith and of human liberty. In his parish at Newport (which might have been called Slave-port, from the number of cargoes of slaves that were landed there

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COLONIZATION IN AFRICA.

from Africa), his soul was kindled with indignation; and he longed to see the day when these unhappy children of an oppressed race should be sent back to the land from which they had been torn. But he did not live to see his hope fulfilled. After his death, the project was revived by some of the best men in the country, such as Bishop Meade and Charles F. Mercer of Virginia, and Rev. Dr. Finley of New Jersey; and in 1816 a Society was organized, with the great name of Washington (Bushrod Washington) as its President. A deputation was sent to Africa to select a site for a colony, and chose the best on the western coast, with five or six hundred miles on the Atlantic, and extending three hundred miles into the interior. Instead of being all swamps and jungle, it was a high, rolling country, with hills covered with forests, and a number of navigable streams. In 1820 eighty-six colonists were sent out, and in the course of a few years it had transported ten thousand free colored people. In 1847 it was organized as an independent Republic, to which was fitly given the name of Liberia. Then, as for many years before and after, it bore the illustrious name of Henry Clay as its President. It seemed a most benign and happy project; and when, now and then, a ship sailed away, bearing a reinforcement to the colony, devout men and women gathered on her deck, and sang hymns, and offered prayers and thanksgivings, in blissful hope that the day of Africa's redemption was drawing nigh. But since the foundation of the colony, seventy years have passed, and the day does not seem to be much nearer than before.

Since the war the Colonization Society has faded from the public notice so entirely that many will be surprised to learn that it is still in existence. But the visitor at Washington, as he rides down Pennsylvania avenue, will see its sign still on the corner, where it has hung so long;

THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA.

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and once or twice a year (perhaps oftener) it sends a small contingent to the shores of Africa. Nor is the work that it has done to be despised: for it is no small thing to plant a colony which, in spite of all obstacles, still lives, and has grown strong; which has a good government, with schools and churches, with eighteen or twenty thousand people born in America, or their descendants, forming the nucleus of a civilized and Christian State; and that has a million of natives under its beneficent rule. This is a great deal to be accomplished within three-score years and ten-the life-time of a man-and is worth all that it cost.

As such, Liberia will remain a beacon-light on the African coast, to attract all who may wish to go. But their going should be a matter of perfect liberty. Whoso is "called," either by Providence or his own inward yearning for the land of his fathers, let him go. But let no man be compelled to choose what seems to him exile from the land of his birth. If of his own unfettered will he elects to go, let him depart with the blessing of all Christian people upon him, assured that on the other side of the ocean he will find a home and a welcome, and may become a missionary of civilization and Christianity to a continent. To those who thus go as volunteers, the change may be a good one, and their coming may be a valuable accession to the colony; but as reducing the colored population in this country, the effect would be infinitesimal.

To anticipate anything beyond this limited and voluntary emigration, seems to me quite visionary. I know that a high authority, a man of great intelligence and learning, Dr. Edward W. Blyden (a full-blooded African, though born in the West Indies), who has spent the greater part of his life in Liberia, argues that colonization on the widest scale is the true, and indeed the only, exit for the negro race. He says in so many words that the